'Ah, well,' said Mrs. Crump, shaking her head solemnly; 'there's a sad story attached to the family. My niece, what the master and I have brought up like one of our own children, has got the sitivation as maid to Mrs. Fairfax, and she knows all the ins and outs of their trouble as no one else do. You see, this is how it is! They were a Lunnon family, and come down here first for change of air. They took lodgings in Mrs. Twist's farm; there were Mrs. Fairfax and the two young ladies, and a dashing young gentleman, the son, who came down for a day or two at a time, but he never stayed long. Mrs. Fairfax were proud as proud could be, and very cold and stern-like except to her son, so Jane says, and him she couldn't do enough for; her heart was just bound up in him! Jane went back with them to Lunnon, but she says the way the young gentleman went on were enough to break any mother's heart. He was fast going to the bad; and yet his mother, though she would scold and fume at times, never seemed to see it, and paid his debts, and let him have his fling. Miss Nesta were engaged to be married, and Jane says her lover did all he could to stand by her brother and keep him straight; but it weren't no good whatever. And about two year ago the end came. Mr. Arthur had some trouble over a gaming-table; that was the beginning; then he went and signed a bank cheque that wasn't his—I believe as how it is called forging, and the gentleman whose cheque it was had him up in court; he wouldn't hush it up, and it was the talk of all Lunnon, so Jane tells me. His mother would have paid up, though it would have ruined her; but she weren't allowed, and he were sent to prison across the seas for seventeen years. Jane says Mrs. Fairfax seemed turned to stone; she shut up the Lunnon house, and went abroad to some foreign place with a long name, I forgets it now; and then she comes back and takes Holly Grange, which is as nice an old house as ever you see, and belonged to a Colonel Sparks, who died only a twelvemonth ago, and is about a mile from here, over against that wood you see yonder. But I'm tiring of you with this long tale.'
'I like to hear it,' said nurse; and so did Betty, though a good deal of it was incomprehensible to her. She sat with Prince in her arms on the grass close by, and her quick little ears were listening to every word.
'Well,' said Mrs. Crump, with a sigh, 'there ain't much more to tell. Jane says Mrs. Fairfax shuts herself up and won't see a single visitor; Miss Grace, the eldest daughter, who was never very strong, has become a confirmed invalid, with very crotchety and fidgety ways, and makes every one miserable who comes near her. Miss Nesta is the only one that keeps bright; and Jane says her temper is that sweet, she bears with all her sister's crossness and unreasonableness, and her mother's icy coldness, like an angel. She have had her troubles, too, poor thing! Jane tells me that it was Mrs. Fairfax made her break off her engagement with her lover; he were some relative of the gentleman that lost the cheque, and she wouldn't have the engagement go on on no account. Jane says her lover had a talk with Mrs. Fairfax, and he were rather a high and mighty gentleman, and he left the room as white as death, and declared he would never set foot in the house again. Jane thinks Mrs. Fairfax was beside herself at the time, and must have insulted him fearful. Anyhow, it all came to an end. It's a world of trouble, Mrs. Duff. But I feel very sorry for Miss Nesta. The other ladies hardly ever leave the house or grounds, and they would like to keep Miss Nesta in as well; but she comes across to me and has a chat, and she reads a chapter and has prayers with grandfather. She's a very good young lady, and no one would think, to look at her, what she have come through.'
'Has she come through tribulation?' asked Betty, looking up suddenly.
'Well, I never did! To think of that child a-taking it all in!' ejaculated Mrs. Crump. 'What do you know about tribulation, little missy?'
'It means trouble or distress, I know;' and Betty's face was very wistful as she spoke.
'Run along and play with the others,' said nurse quickly, 'and don't worry your head over other people's troubles. There is plenty of it in the world, but your time hasn't come for it yet.'
'I wish it would come,' said Betty softly, 'and then I could put myself in that text.'
But only Prince heard the whispered words, and he wagged his tail in sympathy.
It was that night that Betty added another clause to her evening prayers. She generally said them aloud at nurse's knee, but it was not the first time that she had said, 'I want to whisper quite a secret to God'; and nurse always let her have her way.